


Cuckoo at the Kooky Cup

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Big Hero 6
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2748932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Kooky Cup cafe, a punk tries to ask out the barista, the barista tries to ask out the punk, both struggle and fail, and the three remaining employees try not go completely crazy from the tension.</p><p>--</p><p>On hiatus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cuckoo at the Kooky Cup

**Author's Note:**

> Honey's handwriting was originally described as "loose, loopy cursive." According to Honey Lemon's application form, she writes in simple, loose print.
> 
> As it turns out, GoGo is the one that writes in cursive, albeit neater and with less fanfare.

“And here’s your apron, uniform, and most importantly, your hummingbird cap,” The boss, Mr. Forthill, said as he pushed the items into his newest employee’s arms, “I trust you’re going to do us good here at the Kooky Cup, Ms. Tomago?”

GoGo faked her best friendly smile, as cheerful and sunny as a punk with dyed hair, a leather biker jacket, and ripped purple-and-black stockings could be. “Yes sir!” She shrugged off her jacket, and started putting on the employee button-up over her shirt.

The man smiled and nodded. “That’s what I like to hear! And remember: your precious jacket is going to be just fine in the employee lockers. Also—"

“Get a new pair of stockings, or just use regular socks,” The teenager said with him as she threw on the apron, “I got the memo, sir!”

“Good!” Mr. Forthill clapped his hands together, “Alright everybody, form up!”

And by everybody, he meant the four other employees in the café: a friendly, harmless looking teen with giant ears; a blonde boy who looked like he hadn’t seen a shower, scissors, or a razor in months; a giant with dreadlocks; and the reason GoGo had taken the job in the first place, the tall, very lanky, and eternally chipper blonde with the pink glasses.

Somehow, GoGo found herself standing right next to her crush in the line-up. She looked down at her, flashed her a friendly smile and a wave, and Mr. Forthill’s rousing speech to his squad of “‘Sokyo Servers” devolved into indistinct background noise. GoGo didn’t even cringe at the corniness of the obvious non-native’s attempt at being clever.

Luckily for her and the rest of the café, tall boy was quick to snap her out of it. “Hey, new girl!” He said, snapping his fingers in front of her face.

GoGo came out of her trance. “What?”

“Place is about to open in five minutes, you should get your cap on and your nametag from Fred.” He helpfully pointed to the cashier, the unshaven blonde. “Name’s Tadashi, by the way.”

He gave her a light pat on the back and GoGo found herself demonstrating Newton’s First Law till she bumped into the counter with her foot.

Fred smiled and waved. “Hey there, new girl! Got your nametag right here!” He held up a little piece of white plastic with a clip, reached over to the other side, and attached it on her apron, opposite the logo, like everyone else’s. “Just gotta write your new nickname in!” He declared, reaching into his apron pocket for a black marker.

“Wait, nickname?” GoGo asked, “Dude, I don’t even know you!”

“And I don’t know you either!” The cashier said with a nod, uncapping his pen, “But what I do know is that that seriously tricked out bike in the parking lot right next to Honey Lemon’s is yours, and you like to go fast!”

She smiled. “Yeah, I do.”

“… Which is why I’m going to call you GoGo!”

She scowled. “No, no way!”

GoGo jumped back just before Fred’s black marker could make contact with her nametag.

“Didn’t you get the memo?” Tadashi said as he came up from the back with a basket of free coffee samples, “Fred gives everyone their nicknames, too.”

“Then why are you just Tadashi?” The punk asked, looking at the waiter’s nametag.

“Because he worked here before me.” Fred replied.

Tadashi’s nametag was indeed different. It was black, still, but very neatly printed out, in contrast to the messy, all-caps, but legible blocking of Fred’s.

“Well, what would you like to be called, then?” GoGo turned her head to the voice. The chipper blonde had come up right beside her to join the conversation.

The punk found that her voice had left her.

“GoGo it is!” Fred announced, reaching over with his pen once more.

“Wait, Fred!” The barista said, holding up her palm to stop the cashier, using the other hand to dig into her own apron pocket. She pulled out a pink marker, leaned forward till her face was but inches away from the blank nametag, and wrote out in loose, simple print:

GoGo

Suddenly GoGo didn’t think the nickname was that bad anymore.

“There, all nice and pretty!” The blonde pulled back, and capped her pen, storing it back into her apron’s pocket. Still bereft of speech, the punk’s eyes scanned her nametag: "Honey Lemon," in the same loose, simple, and pink print.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Said the giant, emerging from the back with a plate of free pastry samples. His nametag was written in Fred’s handwriting: Wasabi.

GoGo took one of the tasty looking squares and popped it into her mouth. They were rather good.

Wasabi freaked out. “What the—those are free samples for the customers!” He threw his arms up into the air, an unbelieving expression on his face.

GoGo enjoyed them even more.

“Relax, Wasabi,” Fred said, popping one of the squares into his own mouth, “There’s nothing on it that says ‘Customers Only’.”

“Oh, hey, we’re giving out Nutty Butter Bar samples today?!” Tadashi yelled as he came running back to the counter, grabbing a handful then dashing for the safety of the self-service island.

Wasabi freaked out more and more, angrily spluttering and gesturing at the sign then at his fellow staff.

“I’ll just make more later,” Honey Lemon said as she picked up the second to the last piece, “Besides, it’s not like I didn’t already make a huge batch of them just this morning!”

Wasabi groaned, ate the last one, and picked up the now empty basket. He was about to go back to the kitchen grumbling before he decided to chew on the gooey treat instead.

GoGo swallowed. “You made these?”

“Mhmm!” Honey Lemon replied, “My own personal recipe!”

GoGo decided right there and then that she absolutely loved Nutty Butter Bars.

“You might think this is just another crappy summer job,” Fred said as he smartened up, the first customers of the day already filtering in, “But this place is actually pretty cool and fun!”

“Eh, probably.” The punk replied, trying her best not to smile too wide.

* * *

“Hey, how you lovely ladies doing today?” Tadashi greeted the table of three, all female, all teenagers his age, all very much interested in him. “One Green Peace Tea for the lady with the sweet caramel eyes, one Paint It Black and a Cheesy Cake for the warrior with the fire in her hair and her heart, and one CinnaSwirl for the haunting beauty in black. Anything else I can do for you gals?” He said with a grin.

The waiter, without the luxury of time to be discrete, too, stuffed his apron pocket with more napkins with names and phone numbers written on them.

At an adjacent table, GoGo forced on a smile that looked like she was giving it an honest try. “Here’s your food, sir!” She said, placing the tray filled with the bagel, black coffee, and tub of cream cheese without fanfare. “Anything else?”

“No.”

The waitress immediately spun on her heel and retreated back to the kitchen.

“You know, it’s like you’re an Olympian runner and Tadashi’s a labradoodle,” Fred said as she ducked underneath the counter, “You know, you two combine to make like, one super epic Olympian labradoodle waitress/waiter team!”

GoGo would have smacked him for that if she could. Instead, she gritted her teeth and made her way to the back to pick up the latest round of orders. (The building was not originally designed with food service in mind, and could not have a convenient slot in the dividing wall.)

“9, 7, and 4, GoGo!” Wasabi said as walked around the kitchen in a very specific, perfectly timed order, “Plates are arranged for maximum efficiency!”

“Thanks!” The waitress said, casually shaking up a basket full of perfectly arranged potato slices (according to length), before she picked up the tray full of food.

“MY SYSTEM!” The chef wailed, and GoGo went back to the café floor with a smirk on her face.

Tadashi was already waiting for her, arms outstretched to pick the tray right up from her hands. “GoGo, we need you to get a delivery of coffee beans from the front.”

“Why don’t you do it?” The punk quipped, now free hands on her hips.

“Because my limbs are too noodly.” The waiter replied before he went off to serve the orders.

“Exactly!” GoGo replied and made her way out the door. The delivery guys had already loaded the sacks onto the trolley, but they weren’t getting paid to move it into the café. She grinned, put both hands on the handle, and set herself to work.

With thanks to Wasabi, there was an imperceptible road from the door to the Coffee Cat Corner, obvious only when a tiny girl was lugging a trolley loaded with several sacks of roasted beans through the tables. Customers gave her a wide breadth, the one that was too busy leaning out on his chair getting a nasty “accidental” knock forward.

“Sorry!” GoGo said, snickering under her breath as soon as the customer had his back turned. Eventually she came to the highlight of every coffee delivery run:

“Oh, wonderful!” Honey Lemon cried, putting down the newly rearranged jar of Silly Shake Straws, “Right here, right here!” She gestured to the conspicuously empty corner, as if they didn’t do this every other day.

GoGo heaved the sacks off the trolley, wiped the sweat of her brow with her apron, and flashed the barista with the pink “Coffee Cat” cap one of the few genuine smiles she gave on the job.

Honey Lemon opened one of the sacks, leaned down, took a deep whiff of the aromatic beans inside, and sighed. “Thanks, GoGo!” She said, flashing her own smile before she fetched a cup to start scooping it into the machines.

GoGo spent five seconds just standing still with a dazed, pleased expression on her face, before someone snapped her out of it. Today, it was Fred.

“Just do it already!” Is what the cashier yelled to snap the waitress out of her love-struck trance, and back to the surly speedster everyone knew.

GoGo blushed, stammered angrily under her breath, spun on her heel, and retreated from the Coffee Cat Corner as fast as she could.

It was not the first time the line had been said. Nor was it the last time it would ever be said.

“Just do it already!” Wasabi said in between bites of his sushi, as GoGo sat down at the employee break corner for lunch.

The punk replied by angrily tearing away at her baloney sandwich, furtively casting eyes at the door. When Honey Lemon stepped in for her own break, GoGo wolfed down the rest of her food and got back to work.

“Just do it already!” Tadashi whispered into GoGo’s ear as they passed by each other during a quiet hour.

The waitress looked at Honey Lemon idly experimenting with some new caffeinated concoction, and felt intelligent speech leave her. The barista idly looked up, waved and smiled, and GoGo waved back, all while struggling not to turn into a slurry on the floor.

And so business went in the Kooky Cup, every day incomplete without at least one of the boys telling GoGo: “Just do it already!”

And every day, when GoGo had decidedly not asked Honey Lemon out, then, the boys would quietly start pulling their hairs out.

“Do you think we should just tell her?” Fred asked as he sat in the backseat of Wasabi’s car.

“I don’t know, man,” Wasabi replied as he stopped at a red light, “I don’t think we should mess around with romance.”

“Well, we’ve got to do something!” Tadashi said from the passenger seat, “If not for them, then for us. It’s driving me nuts!”

The other two boys nodded their heads sadly and drove into the parking lot of the Kooky Cup. Already, there was a pink bicycle chained there, a conspicuously empty spot right beside it, with a card attached to the metal by the space. Its message was written in pink marker, in loose, simple print:

GoGo


End file.
